


through the snow that swept through the halls

by willowharmony13



Series: heroes and songs [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, D&D CAN FUCKING FIGHT ME, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gendrya - Freeform, I AM CONVINCED THEY WILL LIVE, I have a lot of feelings about that episode and these two okay, THERE IS MORE STORY TO TELL THERE, also can y'all believe we're finally canon, also rating is just for language really, gosh I love these two, post 8x02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 10:26:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18569524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowharmony13/pseuds/willowharmony13
Summary: the ones she had lost and the ones she had foundand the ones that loved her the mostArya has lost everything before. Somehow that doesn't make the thought of losing everything again any easier.





	through the snow that swept through the halls

She couldn’t sleep. She knew she should, knew that she needed rest, that this might be her last chance to go to sleep and be able to wake up again, but the sleep wouldn’t come. Her mind was far too full.

She did her best to steady herself, sort through everything she felt and pack it away into neat little boxes in the back of her mind. If she let them roam free, they would cloud her mind and she would be distracted, she wouldn’t be able to protect her family. Her family…

_ I could be your family. _

She took in a deep breath, trying to ward off the painful memory, and her lungs were filled with that strange and yet familiar scent, the scent of fire and smoke and sweat, the scent of  _ him. _ Somehow, she knew him by heart. She couldn’t count the number of times she had slept by his side, but then, it was… well, it was never like this. She’d been a child and he was barely a man yet, and he only ever slept close enough to her to keep everyone else away.

Now, there was nothing separating them, not even their clothes. He had seen her, all of her, even her scars, and somehow he hadn’t asked, despite the spark of anger she saw in his eyes as he realized that she truly did know Death, that she’d almost met Death herself. He knew so little of what had happened since he last saw her, and yet he wasn’t frightened of her, of what she could do. The way he looked at her just before she kissed him, and again when she climbed on top of him, there was never a trace of fear in his eyes, only… only… 

Gendry stirred beside her, turning over to wrap a strong arm around her waist, and she found herself pressing back against him, despite herself.

“Arya,” he sighed, still half asleep. Then suddenly he tensed against her. “Wait, Arya, did that- did that really just happen?”

She was glad she wasn’t facing him so he couldn’t see her sly grin as she replied, “No, I’m lying naked beside you because nothing happened between us.”

He laughed and she could feel him relax against her again. “All these years and you’re still giving me shit,” he paused, and then leaned to whisper in her ear, “ _ M’lady. _ ”

“I told you not to call me that,” she laughed, lightly jabbing an elbow into his ribs.

“As you wish, m’lady,” he retorted, and the sound in his voice was the same as the look in his eyes, and now she was the one tensing as she tried to avoid knowing exactly what it meant. But he knew her, and he was pressed against her, so there was no hiding that change from him.

“Arya, are you alright?” He was worried now, but she didn’t know how to respond. She had just had sex for the first time, and she’d had it with her childhood best friend, and they could both be dead before sunrise. Did any of that qualify as  _ ‘all right?’ _

“Arya, please. Look at me.” His voice was open and pleading and with a shaky breath, she turned to face him, their noses practically touching, his blue eyes fixed on her grey.

“I don’t know what ‘alright’ is anymore,” she admitted.

“You don’t- do you regret this?” His voice shook and he started to move away from her.

She pulled him back to her, kissing him to shut him up. It was a new tactic for her, but with Gendry, she rather enjoyed it. One of his hands came up to cradle the back of her head, and the other settled on her ribs. His touch was strong, yet gentle, but then again, so was he.

“Don’t be stupid,” she whispered against his lips after they broke apart.

“Then what is it?”

She sat up and put her arms around her knees and took deep breaths, trying to hold herself in, hold in everything she was feeling. But he sat up beside her and placed his hand on her back and suddenly her breaths shook because the reality of what they were facing was too much. She had lost everything once and it had broken her. Now she had put herself back together and she was about to lose it all over again.

“I can’t-” her voice broke, and she had to start again. “I can’t lose you again. Don’t make me lose you again.” She couldn’t look at him, didn’t want him to see her break open.

He pulled her into him and kissed the top of her head, and she felt so small in his arms. She hated feeling small, feeling weak, but these arms had protected her for years on the road, and she could hide her face in the crook of his neck and breathe in the scent of him.

He pulled back and pressed his forehead against hers, but she couldn’t make herself look in his eyes again.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said softly.

“You can’t promise that. No one can,” she snapped. “You know what’s coming.”

His hands ran up and down her arms. “You’re right,” he conceded. “But I’ll do whatever I can to keep that promise. But you have to do the same.” He reached up and brushed a lock of loose hair behind her ear, but left his hand on her neck. “I can’t lose you again either. When I heard what happened to your-” he stopped, knowing she didn’t to remember that now. “When I heard about it, I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead for years, and even once I heard otherwise, I didn’t believe it until I saw you again.”

There was a pause, and somehow Arya could tell that he was about to say something that would change things even more than she had when she kissed him. She kept her eyes closed, she couldn’t bear to look at him.

“You asked me to be your family and I told you I couldn’t be. And then I was sold and apparently a king’s son and you were dead and then Davos rescued me and I was hiding and he came back and brought me to your brother and then dead men were walking and somehow I came back to you.” The words rushed out of him in a tumble of nerves and confusion.

“What I’m trying to say is that things are different. The world turned on its head and somehow I don’t think the old rules still apply, and even if they did… even if they did, I don’t know if I’d still care. Because Arya…”

She opened her eyes and she could see in his eyes the words that were coming.

“Please don’t. I don’t know how…” she trailed off, unsure how to begin to face this.

“I love you, Arya Stark.”

And there it was, and she tried to get herself to say  _ something, _ say  _ anything, _ but she couldn’t get herself to speak.

“You don’t have to say it back, but I had to say it. I’ve loved you for years. In a different way then than I do now, obviously, but it was always there, even when I thought you were dead. Especially then, even. I can’t die without telling you.”

“Then you shouldn’t have told me!” she jumped up, practically shouting, scared and angry, a couple of tears escaping despite her best efforts. “If you couldn’t die without telling me, you shouldn’t have told me, because now you can, and you  _ can’t! _ You are not allowed to die!”

She had met the god of Death over and over, and each time she had told him  _ Not Today, _ but he had been glad to take her father and mother and Robb and Rickon, and now that Gendry had told her this, Death would take him as well, and she didn’t know how to say those words back to him, and he would die without ever hearing her say it.

He stood to face her, taking her hand in his. “I wouldn’t dream of dying without m’lady’s permission.” His old smirk returned to his face. “You’d probably drag me back from death yourself just to kill me for dying on you, and then bring me back a second time to keep.”

And now she was laughing and crying and holding Gendry’s hand, both of them as naked as their namedays, and all of Sansa’s songs and stories could never come up with anything as gods-damned weird as all of this.

“And how do you know I want to keep you?” she teased, easily falling back into their old rhythm.

“Well,” he said, taking her other hand, “an actual army of the dead couldn’t get me to leave you again, so it looks like you’re just going to be stuck with me,” he paused, and with a wicked grin, added, “ _ m’lady. _ ”

She pulled him down to shut him up with a kiss, but this time it was sweeter, slower. They took their time with each other, losing themselves in each other’s arms.

In a few minutes, or an hour, or a lifetime, a horn would blow, and they’d pull their clothes back on and she’d grab her spear and he’d take up a mace. They would leave this room and face the snow, face the armies and the refugees, face her family, face the dead. They’d be fighting in different parts of the castle. They wouldn’t be able to defend each other’s backs like they always had before.

But they could face that, because now, they were fighting to get back to each other.

_ Death can go fuck himself, _ thought Arya.

**Author's Note:**

> I know Arya is pretty stoic, but she's also an 18 year old girl in a ridiculously weird and overwhelming situation. She deserves to freak out, to break down, because sometimes that's the only way to keep everything from destroying you from the inside out. And Gendry... he's lost Arya once, and he only ever wanted to protect her, to keep her safe. Now that they've actually been together, I think that put his feelings in perspective, and considering the fact that he introduced himself to Jon by telling him he's Robert Baratheon's bastard, I don't think my boy is CAPABLE of keeping the fact that he loves Arya to himself once he understands it.  
> If this doesn't reflect your own interpretation of these two, I get it. I wrote a scene I want to believe happened/will happen, but if it's not that for you, that's cool. I just want these two to be happy and admit that they're young and scared and in love.


End file.
